Today’s Object of the Week is a 200-year-old mutton bone guillotine, made during the Napoleonic War, can been seen at The National Museum of the Royal Navy in Hartlepool.

DURING the Napoleonic Wars with France, which ended in 1815 with the Battle of Waterloo, many thousands of French prisoners were kept in Britain, on prison ships around the coast and in camps.

The prisons allowed the inmates to make and sell crafts to earn a little money, and many were extremely talented craftsmen.

However, the prisons did not provide any materials to make them, so the prisoners improvised with what they could find. Therefore, most surviving crafts are made from animal bone, wood and straw, all of which could be found as waste.

Many of the prisoners were French sailors and they made highly detailed model ships along with toys and small decorative items intended as gifts. These included domino sets, decorated boxes, and models such as this one.

There are several other bone guillotine models like this in UK museums, so it was clearly a popular subject. It is based upon the renowned guillotine of the French Revolution which was used to cut off the heads of the nobility – most famously, King Louis XVI and his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette, who were beheaded in Paris in 1793. The lady victim seen in these guillotines probably represents Marie Antoinette who was an unpopular figure in France, and often ridiculed in Britain.

The model is made of animal bone (possibly mutton) with painted details and some cotton threads fixed to moving parts. There are four male guards on the base, and another man, perhaps an executioner, on the upper level with the lady who is lying beneath the blade which can be raised and lowered.

Her head is in a basket beneath, but it can be re-attached with a little peg – it has a thread tied onto it so it cannot get lost! In fact, the model appears to be completely intact, and the red and black paint that highlights the faces and clothes is still vivid, after more than 200 years.

This model, along with other Napoleonic prisoner of war crafts, can be seen in the Hindmarsh Gallery at The National Museum of the Royal Navy Hartlepool. As well as amazing seafaring artefacts and objects like this, there’s lots more to see and do here. Children can play in the amazing, new pirate play ship, you can explore the wonderful, recreated 18th century quayside and step aboard HMS Trincomalee, the oldest warship still afloat in Europe. Experience what is was like to be a sailor onboard a ship that sailed across the world 200 years ago. All activities are included in an admission ticket which lasts for a year from date of purchase.

For more information visit the website at www.nmrn.org.uk/hartlepool